Getting to fitness from non-fitness can be a challenge for the best of us, particularly if we find our body types, metabolism, energy levels, motivation or any of the other factors in the alchemy of fitness stacked against us. We’ll talk a little about what hinders people from getting fit and talk about one program that is definitely ahead of the pack.

Plenty of people start an exercise program, resolve to visit a gym a certain number of times a week or start a yoga class- and then weeks or months later suddenly realise that they’ve fallen off the wagon. Developing motivation, belief, momentum and excitement is important for any kind of project, but for fitness particularly, and this is made more difficult by so many fitness programs that demand large investments of time, energy and money and yet take a great deal of time to deliver results that we can feel good about. For many people trying to get in shape, the first few months of any program seem doomed to consist of frustration, embarrassment and discouragement.

This is absolutely toxic to the entire endeavor, because in the first instance, fitness isn’t about reducing weight or building muscle or endurance. That comes later. First, it is about replacing a physiological and psychological downward spiral with an upward spiral, in which the feeling of improvement in our bodies motivates and rejuvenates us mentally and that positive feeling feeds back into our motivation for exercise.

This upward spiral is the key, and achieving it can be extremely difficult. In a world that has exploded with fitness programs, it’s very easy to find ourselves in the situation of putting in a lot of time for no tangible return. After awhile, it is easy to get discouraged. We then blame ourselves for not sticking with the program, and the cycle of discouragement builds, draining our energy until the whole mind-body organism naturally associates the exercise program with the energy drain. Of course we want to drop the whole thing- at that point, it’s simple self-preservation. After a few of these cycles, many people come to doubt their ability to achieve their desired level of fitness.

But there is at least one program out there that is both perfectly designed kick the discouraged out of their ruts and ideal for maintaining and supplementing advanced levels of fitness.

TACFIT, developed by Scott Sonon, is a program using advanced scientific fitness principles, and it has had a wide impact in law enforcement and Special Forces training. In ten to twenty minutes a day, TACFIT can transform what you think and feel about fitness and teach your body to make the best use of any fitness program you choose. All you need to get started is a mat, a pair of 10-20 lb. weights and access to the Mass Assault video series. (Note that while Mass Assault uses weights, many other TACFIT programs are bodyweight-oriented. I recommend the weight routine for purposes of this article since body-weight exercises require an existing level of fitness and can be difficult for overweight people.) The video above demonstrates exercises with both weights of various types and using body-weight; rest assured, though, that Mass Assault does NOT require access to the array of equipment demonstrated in this particular video.

The routines are deceptively simple, but as long as you pay attention to the advice on body mechanics, you will find them to have amazingly high impact. According to one person who had tried several weight routines with limited success, TACFIT took less than a third of the time of his previous routine but had over three times the impact. Most importantly, the feeling in the body after just a week is totally exceptional. You will find that even if you have done absolutely no significant exercise for months, your muscles will suddenly feel different, as though they have more energy and are begging to be used.

Why can TACFIT achieve this when other routines don’t? There are several reasons. Most importantly, it is designed to change the anabolic state of the body, creating the conditions for muscle growth, something that very few fitness programs do up front. That feeling of muscular energy is the manifestation of a physiological change that translates into much higher benefit from any form of exercise.

Also, where most weight routines target a few areas at a time- e.g. cardio or two or three muscle groups per exercise- TACFIT engages the whole body, not just muscles but all of that essential connective tissue that makes them work. This routine is strength training, endurance and cardio in one. The result is a change so clear and immediate that motivation becomes easy to maintain, whether you choose to continue with TACFIT alone or as part of a wider fitness program. The best part is that it works for any schedule- it doesn’t take much of your time and it leaves you with a higher energy level afterward.

I recommend the first video in the Mass Assault series for beginners, because almost anyone can build to the full routine very quickly, but TACFIT has multiple levels and multiple programs that can support and improve any fitness program at any level.

~ Dr. Symeon Rodger

Here’s something I feel absolutely compelled to share with you about your exercise program. It’s the very latest in exercise research and comes from highly reputable sources. Moreover, it coincides with what many of us have felt to be the case for a very long time – distance running is NOT the answer to your exercise needs, and here’s what IS the answer…

Courtesy of Dr. Joseph Mercola, that tireless researcher of sane solutions for your health, here is a series of videos (4 in all) he recorded with exercise coach Phil Campbell regarding an entirely “new” approach to exercise AND the science behind it:

Campbell’s basic thesis, based on extensive studies, can be reduced to this:

Ordinary cardio, typified by long-distance running, does not in fact work all the muscles and energy systems of your heart. It gives you aerobic exercise but not the vital anaerobic component.

This type of exercise (which also includes much of standard weight training) also fails to work your fast and super-fast muscle fibers, leaving them underdeveloped and atrophying

When you work the fast and super-fast muscle fibers and the aerobic and anaerobic components together, your body produces large amounts of Human Growth Hormone (HGH), which improves cellular regeneration, improves your physical performance and retards the aging process.

In these videos, you’ll learn a whole new way of exercising that can unleash these benefits for you. Even better, this type of exercise takes very little time.

I mentioned above that many of us had intuitively felt for years that distance running and similar endurance training methods were unnatural, unnecessary and responsible for a depressingly high body count (it seems every time I hear about a marathon somewhere, it’s because one of the competitors dropped dead).

As Dr. Mercola mentions in his own article on this, kids and animals in the wild do short, intense exercise, not long distance. I’d add that from my studies of ancient Warrior cultures, they focused largely on short, intense exercise.

And as a side note, to all of you who are using Matt Furey’s famous Combat Conditioning system – don’t stop! The reason I began recommending Furey’s program a few years ago was because he was promoting short, intense exercise and not a 2- hour jog. His system is superb for building core strength and endurance using high intensity in a minimum time frame.

So, if you’re concerned about your fitness and your health, do take the time to digest this information from Phil Campbell. Even though I’ve been doing short, intensive training for years, I’ll be making some adjustments in the coming week based on this new information and I’ll let you know what I discover. Please feel free to share your results too!

Just remember – you should not begin any new program of physical exercise without first consulting your medical doctor.